MOUNTIES MAUL CRYSTAL METH MYTH

Local Police Say No Evidence Of Candy-Flavoured Drug On N. Shore

Despite persistent rumours, the appearance of candy-flavoured crystal
meth in North Shore schools is an urban myth, according to the North
Vancouver RCMP.

Warnings have been circulating for several months that dealers here
have been adding strawberry, peanut butter, cola and other flavourings
to the drug in an effort to hook young kids, and that the concoction
has shown up in at least one school. But as far as the police can
tell, the rumour is simply untrue, said the detachment in a release
Wednesday.

"People are concerned about the welfare of their kids. The concerns
are all legitimate," said Const. Michael McLaughlin, a spokesman for
the department. "But we just haven't found anything that would suggest
this is an actual phenomenon."

Rumours of the substance, supposedly disguised as strawberry Nestl,
Quik or candy similar to Pop Rocks, seem to have surfaced around
April. Several e-mails on the topic have circulated among parents and
faculty, with some reaching the North Shore News and even the police.
North Vancouver RCMP have been getting media inquiries about candy
meth almost daily, said McLaughlin.

But the detachment's drug section has not seen any evidence of the
concoction, and neither has any other agency it contacted. The West
Vancouver police have not seen any evidence either, according to
spokesman Sgt. Paul Skelton.

Health Canada, which analyzes all drugs seized by police in Canada,
confirms the force's assertion, said McLaughlin. Although the federal
agency has asked that any flavoured meth be rushed to it immediately,
it has yet to receive a single sample, suggesting the rumoured
substance hasn't appeared anywhere in the country.

While meth can sometimes be pink or reddish in colour, disguising the
drug as candy doesn't really make sense, said McLaughlin. The majority
of users in North America either smoke the drug or inject it. Only
about 25 per cent of doses are ingested through the mouth or nose. It
tastes bitter and it hurts the throat, he said, making it far from
appealing as a candy.

It's unclear how the rumour started. The first reports of candy meth
seem to have appeared in January this year, when a newspaper called
the Nevada Appeal reported the seizure of flavoured meth from an
apartment in Carson City. The local sheriff's department claimed an
undercover officer had bought two grams of a pink variant of the drug
they dubbed "Strawberry Quick." How the police knew what it tasted
like was not made clear in the story.

The idea gained prominence two months later when USA Today claimed
reports of candy meth were "emerging around the nation," listing eight
states in which it had supposedly appeared. They based the claim on
comments by a spokesman for the American Drug Enforcement
Administration, who said "intelligence" gathered by the agency had
indicated as much. Other than the Nevada story, however, the only
concrete example cited by the paper involved a Missouri patrol officer
who had seized a small bag of what he believed to be meth with "a
slight strawberry smell to it."

Since then, stories of the dangers of strawberry meth have appeared in
numerous postings on the Internet, some of which were cited in e-mails
circulated by the North Vancouver School District. The story was
boosted further by a June 26 report in the Province claiming drug
dealers in the Okanagan were packaging meth like Pixie Stix candy to
target youngsters. But the officer quoted in that story, Staff-Sgt.
Kurt Lozinski of the South Okanagan RCMP, has since said his comments
were misinterpreted.

"I was just saying the (powdered meth) I'd seen in these pictures
reminded me of the Pixie Stix . . . I'd seen as a child," said
Lozinski in an interview with the News. "We have not seen anything
like that. It's not even packaged like that."

While the drug can come in different colours, he said, marketing it as
candy just wouldn't work. "There's no way you would ingest meth that
way, and there's no way kids would want to," said Lozinski. "We have
not seen any such thing."

Parents are right to be wary, said McLaughlin, but it is important to
have the facts.

"There are plenty of legitimate threats out there, don't get me
wrong," he said. "But this is one, at least at this point, we can't
see any validity to."